Towns could switch methods of voting (SB2)

"To SB2, or not to SB2? In several New Hampshire towns, including Amherst and Mont Vernon, that is the question this election season.

Ever since the 1995 passage of Senate Bill 2, which gave all towns and school districts the option to change the Town Meeting and School District Meeting form of government, residents and civic leaders have been debating which is best for their community: the traditional method, at which debate and voting happens at one meeting, or SB2, in which debate happens at Deliberative Session, and secret-ballot voting happens on Election Day, about a month later.

Mont Vernon voters will decide at the polls on March 9 whether to adopt SB2, after three residents spearheaded a petition drive to get the question on the ballot. State SB2 guidelines require that all warrant articles calling for a change in a town or school district’s SB2 status be voted on at the polls, not in the town meeting.

The situation is opposite in Amherst, where a petition article presented by resident Jack Kunkel asks voters to decide whether the town should ditch SB2 and return to traditional Town Meeting format. Amherst voters adopted SB2 shortly after it passed into law for the town, as well as the Souhegan Cooperative and Amherst school districts.

As of last year, 63 towns and 73 school districts in New Hampshire have adopted SB2, according to state Department of Revenue Administration figures."

Read more of this Nashua Telegraph article.